From PC to Mac: Four things that make the transition confusing

A few days ago, my not-so-trusty Acer first-generation Ultrabook died. I still don’t know what happened, but I think it is suffered some sort of hard drive failure. To its credit, it lasted about three years, although I did have to take it in for repairs on a few occasions.

I decided to make the relatively difficult decision to purchase a Mac. I’ve been playing with the idea for a while and, given the back to school discounts numerous big box retailers have on the lower-end Macbook Pros and Airs, I finally had an excuse to spend a stupid amount of money on a Mac.

I’ve been a PC user for about 20 years, so switching to the land of Steve Jobs is an intimidating idea, especially because I usually don’t enjoy significant change when it comes my technological devices. I’m very set in my ways and have performed day to day tasks on my PC in the same way for years.

While OS X Mountain Lion is very similar to Windows 7 (I never made the jump to Windows 8), I’ve still run into a few difficulties during my transition from PC to Mac. It’s obvious Microsoft has borrowed a lot of features from Apple’s operating system over its last few iterations, though.

Of course I’ve only spent a few hours with my new Macbook Air, so many of these issues will probably be non-existent after I spend more time with OS X (hopefully).

Over all though, I’m impressed with how easy the laptop’s operating system has been to pick up, but I’ve still run into a few difficulties.

1. Crazy track pad gestures

Right now, I’m finding the amount of touch gestures included with my Macbook Air to be a little overwhelming.

For someone who’s used Windows-based laptops their entire life, most of Apple’s Macbook touchpad gestures are foreign to me. Pinching to zoom makes sense because my old Acer laptop actually had this feature. Sliding two fingers up and down to scroll the page, is intuitive and makes sense. This feature’s direction was initially inverted, though, so I had to reverse it in system settings.

Still, even after making this change, this gesture is difficult for me to remember to use. I constantly find myself moving the Mac’s cursor over to the scroll bar to slide the page up and down.

This is where the gestures stop making sense for me, though. Swiping up with three fingers (I changed this setting from the stock four fingers) to see all of my open apps and switch between them, still feels a little awkward. Pinching my thumb and three fingers together to open the launch pad, also is strange.

Then there’s this entire list of gestures, most of which I haven’t even got around to attempting to learn yet. Of course, not all of them will end up being useful. But after watching my friend, who looked like she was casting magical spells over her track pad with her heavy gesture use, many of them seem to be worth learning.

2. Unrecognisable file extensions

Apps? What are these foreign things? Bring back my .exe files!

My beloved .exe files are gone and instead are replaced with crazy extensions like .dmg and .app. I also found it difficult to figure out how to edit the extension for files on my new Mac. After some tinkering, I did manage to alter it though.

Of course, I’ll catch onto Mac’s file extension language with time, but right now, seeing foreign letters after a period, makes my brain hurt. I blame using a PC for 20 years on this issue.

3. Understanding how to use the dock

The dock feature Mac’s operating system has is just plain weird.

I understand its purpose and it does make accessing the programs I use most frequently much easier, it’s just so different than what I experienced with Windows. Windows 7 of course has its own knock-off version of the dock, but apart from placing Chome and one other app on it, I rarely used it.

This is another feature that will make more sense with time. It’s just going to be difficult for the first few months. I’m also not fond of how the dock disappears when I have my work space maximized. If I have the window minimized, this isn’t an issue though.

Hopefully, after a few more hours of experimentation, the Dock will be integrated into my daily computer activities.

4. Using two fingers to right click the track pad

Right now, clicking the touchpad with two fingers, still seems foreign to me.

Right clicking to open up extra options with Windows is second nature to me. I remember using an older version of Mac’s operating system during my short stint as a sports intern at a local community newspaper when I was in high school and being very confused. The inability to right click with a Mac back then boggled my mind. I just couldn’t comprehend that my mouse only had one giant button and that right clicking didn’t exist in a Mac user’s world.

Thankfully, with the latest iteration of Apple’s Mac OS, all you need to do to right click your Macbook’s touchpad with two fingers. Right now, remembering to do this is extremely difficult but just like many of the problems I’m having, I’m sure I’ll catch on after I spend more time adjusting and learning.

5. Removing installed software is weird.

Before I was able to uninstall a piece of software with my shiny new mac, I had to quit it (simply press x in the top right corner doesn’t do the trick with macs), and then find it on my Mac using the search feature (or go to the applications window). Finally, I then drag it to the recycle bin and remember to empty the bin as well.

If I did this process with a PC, tons of files would still be present on the computer and I’d probably have to run a defragment after. Since installing software on a Mac doesn’t alter system registry settings, this isn’t an issue for Mac users. This feature is great, but for someone who’s used a PC for most of their life, it feels a little strange. I actually couldn’t even figure out how to remove a program at first and had to Google the process.

To my surprise, making the transition to Mac hasn’t been as difficult as I feared. The features I’ve outlined above are minor gripes and with time, I’ll hopefully start to slowly get a greater understanding of them.